PPRuNe Forums - Longest Flight

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Hi guys,

I was wondering what would be the longest non stop scheduled pax or cargo
flight nowadays.
I'll appriciate any input.

Newark-Singapore by Singapore airlines in the A340-500 is the longest scheduled flight, I believe, both in terms of distance and duration.

Cargo I would guess MEM-HKG by Fedex in the 777F.

What time and /or distances are we looking at?

I did 15:20 last week, OMAA-KJFK. Then had a whole 24hrs off to recover!!

I think DXB-LAX lasts about 17 -18 hours

Did Lax-Mel about 16.5 the other day ... however Perth-Columbo has the record for a scheduled airline service I believe .... 32-34 hrs in a Catalina .... (fast flight plan was 28 hrs)

ok .. it was a while ago .. but I had to put it in.....

Looks like Singapore Airways from Newark to Singapore may be the longest scheduled flight at the moment weighing in at 18.5 hours.

Singapore Airlines Flight 21

Will we ever see London - Sydney non stop?

Holy cow, how many flight planned miles is that?

FDX HKG-MEM (777F) is planned at 14:10 flight/14:36 block. Puddle-jumping compared to some of the pax sectors:eek:

DFW-BNE is scheduled at 16:15 this time of the year. It is longer during southern winter - hello NOU!!

I don't care what they say... long haul flying is extremely overrated.

The worse experience was on riding in Business Elite on CAL from BOM to EWR when the cognac ran out:{:eek:!

Quote:

Will we ever see London - Sydney non stop?

The White Rat did it in an empty 747-400 I
believe some 22 odd yonks ago taking just
over 20hrs.

Landed with his 30 mins and not much else.

Will we ever see London - Sydney non stop?

adding to Slasher's note, this was a delivery flight as I recall dressed up for PR purposes. With a bit of commercial pressure inflight replanning finally stretched it to Sydney .. I recall from an RAeS lecture (years ago) regarding the flight that it wasn't overly comfortable for the last bit.

High density cold soaked fuel with the aircraft towed out to the runway .. but it made a good PR yarn at the time.

The great circle distances for the routes mentioned so far:
DXB-JFK 5967 nm
MEM-HKG 7115 nm
EWR-SIN 8285 nm
DXB-LAX 7246 nm
LAX-MEL 6883 nm
DFW-BNE 7215 nm
LHR-SYD 9188 nm
BOM-EWR 6784 nm

http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=OMAA-KJFK...X=720x360&PM=*

(Courtesy of the wonderful Great Circle Mapper )

SAA A346 JNB-JFK 7000nm

I remember SAA had a stopover in Accra, and then switched to Dakar. Are they doing it non stop now?

Don't forget SYD-DFW at 7454nm great circle distance (DFW-BNE is shorter, but takes longer due to the prevailing winds).

My longest is nearly 16 hours, 52mins block time DFW-BNE.

What's the max payload FedEx can lift out of HKG direct MEM on 77F? 70T? 80T?

Yes the SAA JNB-JFK is non-stop now. It's not unusual to see 16:45 block time in this sector. SAA is considering JNB-IAD non-stop due to the success to the JFK route.

There have been debates as to whether this flight counted, it's certainly not a scheduled service but it was a revenue paying charter and not a stripped out aircraft purely flying for a record attempt.

BA Boeing 777-200 breaks non-stop commercial flight record, Brussels to Melbourne

Quote:

UK flag carrier British Airways set a new record for the longest non-stop commercial flight late last month, when it flew 17,157km (9,274nm) from Brussels international airport to Melbourne.

One of the airline's Boeing 777-200s (similar to the one pictured below) was chartered by UK prime minister Tony Blair and his entourage to fly to attend the Commonwealth Games, a multi-sports event for former UK colonies, held in Australia's second city. The prime minister had been in Brussels for a European Union heads of government before embarking on the flight, which had been requested months ago as non-stop in order to make the closing ceremony of the games.

Max Kingsley-Jones / Flight International

The flight, captained by Capt Rod Mitchell, took 18h 45min to reach Melbourne, during which three hot meals were served. It has not been released how many passengers were onboard the 305-seat aircraft, although the prime minister usually travels with around 40 members of entourage and is followed by a further 20 journalists. To comply with crew flight time limitations, 20 crew were onboard, of which two were captains, two were senior first officers and 12 were cabin crew. An engineer, a security manager and a catering manager were also part of the personnel.

In June last year Boeing flew the 777-200LR variant 21,601km in 22h 42mins without refuelling from Hong Kong to London, setting a new record for a commercial airliner. However the 24 March London to Melbourne flight is the longest flight with paying passengers under civil transport rules.

Boeing is keen to promote the -200LR as a hub-buster, and Australian carrier Qantas told Flight International in July that it had been assured by the US airframer that the "Holy Grail" of non-stop flights from Australian east coast cities to London without fuel stops with an “economic payload” would be feasible with the -200LR. Boeing is understood to be studying a 18,500km variant involving six auxilliary fuel tanks.

The still air distance from Sydney to London Heathrow is 17,000km but allowances for headwinds and minimum fuel reserves require a range of 17,600km. The official range of the -200LR is currently 17,400km, based on 301 passengers with three auxiliary fuel tanks.

Following meetings in Canberra, the aircraft carried Blair's retinue on to Wellington, New Zealand and Jakarta, Indonesia where Blair held further talks before returning to London.

Emirates did some cargo charter last year in a 777 SYD-JFK:eek:

For the regular RPT flights its SIN-EWR; SIN-LAX; SYD-DFW in the top 3 for NM.

Non-stop flight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It would be interesting to see what economics of the 380 vs the 777 would be on those routes. Revenue load, passengers and freight, versus fuel burn.
Anyone have an idea at the numbers?

Quote:

Max Kingsley-Jones / Flight International
Boeing flew the 777-200LR variant 21,601km in 22h 42mins without refuelling from Hong Kong to London,

Was that going the long way round? Or the return distance going the usual way?

Quote:

Was that going the long way round? Or the return distance going the usual way?

Eastbound, one way.

That aircraft is now flying for Pakistan International as AP-BGZ.
I took a photo at Manchester last year and was puzzled by the bit of paper with some scribble on it, stuck on the body, adjacent to one of the doors.
Zoomed it in, tweaked it a bit and found it was a notice with the details of the flight.
Ship Photos, Container ships, tankers, cruise ships, bulkers, tugs etc

Quote:

Eastbound, one way.

Why, I wonder? Politics? Clearances? Contrarian navigator? Out to prove a point?

Quote:

Max Kingsley-Jones / Flight International
Boeing flew the 777-200LR variant 21,601km in 22h 42mins without refuelling from Hong Kong to London,

Was that going the long way round? Or the return distance going the usual way?

Quote:

Eastbound, one way.

So what route did they fly to get 21,601 km? The shortest GC distance HKG - LHR is 9647 km.

Yes, well, as DaveReid said, they went Eastbound, which is about twice the distance on the GC route, let alone the actual.

The route was roughly:
Hong Kong
Tokyo
Midway Island
Los Angeles
New York
London

Remember, this was for a non-stop flight record so the route was constructed of a number of segments.

There were two sunrises during the flight, reminiscent of the QANTAS Catalina service during WW2.

Singapore - New York

No way I would go on a flight that long.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...premium-europe

Oh well, the longest travelling i did was something like 6 hours to AUH and then another 14 to MEL. And around 2 hours on the ground in between. It was nice to walk around some, buti could have done actually the same during the flight as of course it was in business and there was enough space, not to mention that nice bar between business and first on the upper deck. In Economy that would have been living hell. And as i understand that singapore airlines flight will be all business, no economy on board. Probably a small first class if there is enough demand for it. Which provides more space and easy sleeping on full flat bed seats. And of course there is choice, one can always choose another option.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flightmech (Post 6958715)

FDX HKG-MEM (777F) is planned at 14:10 flight/14:36 block. Puddle-jumping compared to some of the pax sectors:eek:

Didn't the '747SP of the late '70s do this sort of block time?

I've flown numerous flights in the 744 over 14 hours. Longest was 18.2 hours HSV-HKG.

Augmented RAF Herc crew did 28 hrs in the early eighties. I managed 20 hrs with a basic crew.......different times !